The present invention relates to a low cost head gimbal assembly for a multiple disc magnetic disc drive. More specifically, the present invention relates to a head gimbal assembly with an integrated electrical/mechanical attachment to the arm assembly and with a stiff plate on the flexure to set the system attitude.
Generally, a magnetic disc drive includes a magnetic disc and a magnetic read/write head. When the disc rotates, the magnetic read/write head reads and writes magnetic signals on circular tracks on the disc. The read/write head is typically mounted on a slider, which is mounted to a suspension or load beam. The load beam biases the slider toward the surface of the rotating disc. This biasing is sometimes referred to as “pre-loading”. The load beam is attached to an actuator arm of an actuator, which moves the read/write head over the spinning disc during operation.
In a high capacity disc drive, multiple double-sided discs, arranged vertically in a stack, can be read from and written to by multiple read/write heads, each attached to a slider that is mounted to a load beam. In a high capacity disc drive, a single actuator arm typically controls a pair of load beams, and each pair of load beams are arranged between adjacent discs in the stack, such that the first read/write head in the pair is biased toward the bottom of one disc while the second read/write head is biased toward the top of the other disc.
A typical prior art suspension is made from metal that is bent to bias the slider toward the disc surface. The pre-load bend region imparts z-height stiffness to the assembly. The suspension is typically attached to the arm assembly by swaging. In other words, during the assembly process, a ball and cross is used to plastically deform the suspension material into the arm at the attachment area. Finally, the electrical interconnections formed on the suspension are attached by a separate process via wires to the electrical connections on the actuator arm to complete the assembly process.
As the disc drive industry advances technologically, each element of the disc drive assembly is becoming increasingly integrated, and space and assembly costs are at a premium. Increasingly, circuitry is integrated with the actuator arms and other mechanical elements of the disc drive. It is desirable to integrate the mechanical connections with the electrical connections to provide a simpler, less expensive head gimbal assembly.